Lines and What They Express
Grade 3 – Lesson 1
(Art Connections, Level 3, pgs. 16-19)
Big Idea
Using different directions of lines can create a mood or feeling in a
drawing or painting.
Learning Targets and Assessment Criteria
Target 1: Identify and use line directions. (Arts EALR 1.1 Elements of Art: Line
direction)
Criteria 1: Describes and draws at least three directions of line – e.g. vertical,
horizontal, diagonal, zigzag, curved.
Target 2: Uses line direction expressively. (Arts EALR 3.1 Communication through the
Arts: Line direction for expressive effect)
Criteria 2: Combines various directions of line to express the mood of a
specific kind of weather (describe mood in writing).
Local Art Reference
Anooralya (Wild Yam Dreaming), 1995
Emily Kame Kngwarreye
2000.157
Seattle Art Museum
(NOTE to Teacher: See Art Background section at end of lesson for more information
about this work of art.)
Looking at Art Questions
(Note to Teacher: Show Kngwarreye’s Wild Yam Dreaming above, Burchfield’s Orion in
December and Monet’s Bridge over a Pool of Water Lillies from Art Connections, Level
3, pgs. 16-17.)
1. Think about lines that you see outside in nature. As I mention something from
nature, silently draw in the air to show what kinds of line you imagine: water
tumbling down a mountainside, grasses being blown over by a strong wind,
lightning during a rainstorm, tall cedar trees, a rainbow arching over the land.
ARTS IMPACT Arts FUNdamentals – Third Grade Lesson One: Lines and What They Express
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2. Line direction means describing the way a line moves across a picture –
horizontally, vertically, diagonally, zigzag, curved. What line directions do
you see in these three paintings? (Have students both point out visually and
describe with words.)
3. Horizontal lines can make us feel calm (because they remind us of lying
down). Vertical lines can look steady and powerful. Diagonal lines often make
us feel excited or anxious (because they remind us of falling down). What
feelings do you get from curvy lines? Or zigzags?
4. What kind of mood or feeling do you get from Burchfield’s Orion in
December? Monet’s Bridge over a Pool of Water Lillies? Kngwarreye’s Wild
Yam Dreaming?
5. How do the line directions each artist used give you that feeling?
6. We are going to make our own compositions of lines to express the mood of a
certain type of weather.
Art Making Activity
(See the Create section Art Connections, Level 3, pg. 19)
Make an Expressive Weather Drawing
How do different kinds of weather make you feel? Use a variety of
line directions to make a weather scene that shows that feeling.
1. Close your eyes and imagine the different kinds of weather
we have, and how each makes you feel.
2. Pick a type of weather and decide whether it makes you feel
calm or active. Write some feeling words in your sketchbook
that describe the mood of that kind of weather.
3. In your sketchbook, experiment with different line directions
to express that feeling.
4. Make your expressive weather drawing, using at least three
different directions of lines.
Tips for Teachers
Each Student Needs

A sketch book

Sketch pencil (HB or 2B)

Two 6x9 pieces of tinted paper (Canson Mi-Teintes)
(Have a range of tints of paper to choose from)
Every Table Group of Students Needs

Vine/willow charcoal

Block charcoal

Conté crayons: black, white

Chamois cloths

Tortillions

Vinyl erasers

Tray for each table’s supplies
Before class

Set each place with sketchbook
and sketching pencils

On each table group set trays with
various kinds of charcoal, chamois
cloths, and kneaded erasers.
During Class

Before students experiment with
the charcoal, demonstrate some of
the different qualities of line you
can make with different kinds of
charcoal.

Tortillions (tor-tee-yon) are used
on their side. They softly blend
the charcoal without erasing it.
ARTS IMPACT Arts FUNdamentals – Third Grade Lesson One: Lines and What They Express
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Vocabulary
Line Direction
Diagonal
Horizontal
Zigzag
Vertical
Curved
Expressive



Tips for Teachers (cont.)
Chamois (shă-mee) cloth gently
blends charcoal (our fingers have
too much oil on them to do that
well), and lightens the marks a
little.
Vinyl erasers can make light lines
through charcoal.
Model that children should never
blow charcoal dust off their
pictures. Instead, have students
tap extra dust off into a tissue.
Self-Assessment
Name_________________________________
Did you make at least three different directions of lines in your
expressive weather drawing?
I made ____________ lines for____________________________________
I made ____________ lines for____________________________________
I made ____________ lines for____________________________________
The mood I was trying to express was
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
Reflecting on Our Art (from Art Connections, Level 3, pg. 19)




Describe: Name the different kinds of line directions and line qualities you used in
your weather drawing.
Analyze: What kind of feeling were you trying to express about the weather? How do
the lines show this feeling?
Interpret: If you were to change the lines, how would the mood or feeling be
different?
Decide: If you could do this drawing over again, how would you change it?
ARTS IMPACT Arts FUNdamentals – Third Grade Lesson One: Lines and What They Express
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Art Background (for Anooralya (Wild Yam Dreaming), by Emily Kame
Kngwarreye)
Through this painting, we are transported to the center of Australia, to a flat, windswept
settlement where outsiders might see only an expanse of red dirt. Our guide is an eightyfive-year-old woman whose eyes are full of observations and who has years of
experience painting bodies for ceremonies. Emily Kame Kngwarreye discovered the lush
fluidity of acrylics in 1988, launching her extraordinarily prolific career that is full of
bravado in handling paint. The swirling network in this painting directs us underground
to explore a maze of roots produced by an anooralya, the name of the yam plant whose
vigorous growth is evident here. Kngwarreye was a custodian of knowledge of this
resourceful plant.
For thousands of years, Aboriginal painting appeared primarily on the human body, on
the ground, on trees or rock walls or on ceremonial objects. Such art conveyed sacred
laws derived from Dreamings, when ancestral beings animated the world. This artistic
legacy is the longest continuing artistic tradition on Earth, twice as old as the cave
paintings of Lascaux.
In the latest generation, Australian Aboriginal artists have contributed significantly to
world art by adapting their knowledge and applying it to painted canvases. These
paintings offer a new look at life on the vast stretches of the Australian continent. It also
brings viewers closer to a coded system of beliefs, where some of the smallest creatures
might have the biggest stories, as seen in paintings by other Utopian artists. This new
episode in art history also explores the parameters of abstraction in a way that can be
compared to other paintings in SAM's collection.
Excerpted from Seattle Art Museum’s Close-Ups online at:
http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/emuseum/code/emuseum.asp?collection=5618&collect
ionname=WEB:CloseUps&style=browse&currentrecord=1&page=collection&profile=ob
jects&searchdesc=WEB:CloseUps&newvalues=1&newstyle=single&newcurrentrecord=
9
Cross-Curricular Connections
Science – Identifying types of weather and what causes them
ARTS IMPACT Arts FUNdamentals – Third Grade Lesson One: Lines and What They Express
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Assessment Checklist
Student
Describes and draws at least
three different directions of
line
(3 points – 1 point for each
different line direction)
Combines various directions
and qualities of line to
express the mood of a
specific kind of weather
(1 point)
TOTAL
4
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
Total Points
Percent Comprehension
Teacher Notes:
ARTS IMPACT Arts FUNdamentals – Third Grade Lesson One: Lines and What They Express
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Letter Home
Dear Family,
Today we learned that a line can be named for the direction in
which it moves – horizontal, vertical, diagonal, zigzag, curved. We
learned that you can combine lines of different directions to create
a specific mood in a work of art. We looked at landscape paintings
(by Charles Burchfield and Claude Monet) and a Dreamtime
painting by Australia Aboriginal painter (Emily Kame
Kngwarreye). In all three paintings, the artists chose certain line
directions to create specific moods. Then we combined various
directions of lines to make pictures of the way a certain type of
weather makes us feel.
At home, your child could keep a sketchbook in which s/he records
interesting line directions s/he comes across in illustrations in
children’s books. Your child could make a new cover for his/her
favorite book, with colored chalk heavy paper, using different
directions of line to express how that story makes him/her feel.
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